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Babe's sexual consent survey finds that 91 per cent of female students say they’ve been groped on a night out

‘It happens on such a casual basis that often you don’t even know who did it’

The worldwide survey polled 14,000 students in the UK, and found that nationally a shocking 91 per cent of girls have been groped in a club. Overall, 82 per cent of students (male and female) have experienced groping. Men reported far less groping, but over half of them – 61 per cent – have still experienced it.

Sussex was the worst university for groping, with 96 per cent of girls experiencing it on a night out. Cardiff came in second worst at 95 per cent, Leeds in third with 94 per cent, and Oxford in fourth with 92 per cent. Edinburgh (91 per cent) and Cambridge (88 per cent) were fifth and sixth worst respectively.

Despite how worryingly high the figures are, the rates of groping in nightclubs have actually gone down. Last year our survey found that 95 per cent of girls had experienced it, with a drop of four per cent this year.

Susanna Cirulli, a Linguistics student at the University of Edinburgh, said she found the statistics “unsurprising”. Talking about her own experiences she said: “I didn’t know the guy before it happened to be honest the whole situation was very weird. I was in a bar in my hometown getting a drink when a lady complimented me on something I was wearing. Turns out she was only doing it to wingman her friend next to her, he was a lot older than me so I politely declined saying that I was only 18.

“He must’ve been in his late 20s. Later on in the night I went to the main nightclub in Harrogate. On the dance floor I could feel someone repeatedly grabbing my bum. I felt so awkward and turned around as he was there. I had to move away and sort of glare at him to stop. I felt so uncomfortable especially as he was older than me and wouldn’t get the hint that I really really wasn’t interested.

“Getting groped in a nightclub is so common so the stat doesn’t surprise me at all. It happens on such a casual basis that often you don’t really know who did it or why.”